No place to Go

Teenage years are confusing. Society has no clue how to deal with teens. Teenage years are supposed to be the learning and molding years, but everyone has no idea how to treat you. At the beginning of every school year, the teacher says something along these lines, "You're Practically adults, so I'm going to treat you like one". Yet the teenage years are the years where a person goes from having no responsibility (0-12 yrs) to suddenly having all the responsibility of an adult. Some states try teens like adults, others send them to regular prisons, and even worse is teens can be sent to war but cannot vote on the politicians that are sending them to war. When a teen acts out in class, say he decides to act very "immature" and throws something across the classroom, the teachers catches him and says "You're almost an adult act like one". If a 8 year old tosses that same harmless paper airplane, the teacher would laugh, O he doesn't know better. The teacher doesn't say "Shape up, you're almost a teenager!"
Society doesn't know how to treat teenagers. Look at the laws. Smoking, adult literature, lottery tickets, and going off to war can be obtained at 18 years old. Yet school prohibits all of these (on campus and off), they treat 18 year olds like their 11 years old (except they allow recruiters, b/c that's American way). I'm not saying I want smoking to be allowed on campus or that I agree with the law at all, but SHS treats it like a huge sin, even though it's legal for those students. SHS doens't allow those 18 year olds to call themselves out of school, even though they are legal adults. SHS treats their students like 4th graders.
When a teenager acts like an adult, society looks highly upon them ("look how grown up LITTLE Billy is). However, when a teen acts their own age it's viewed as immature. Especially for the younger teens. When I was 12, just barerly a teen, I remembered a time when I was goofing around running around in class or something along those lines. My teacher caught me (I guess I wasn't fast enough) and repremanded me by saying, "I'm trying to prepare you for High School, so start acting like an adult". I was twelve. I still occasionally watched the disney channel. Yet society treats teens like adults.
The government doesn't know what to do with the teenage population. They send em' off to war, they tax the heck out of them, but then they don't give them the right to vote. They say they can't work until their 16 or 17 yet some families need that extra money, so why should the government say that 16 year can't work. They treat older teens like they have no idea what's going on.
Teens are at a very pivotal time in their lives, and the world around them doesn't know what do with them. Do we treat them like kids or adults? I say treat them like adults, but with the key realization that 2 years ago these kids were watching disney and playing at the local park. We must realize that it is important to teach them to be model citizens and responsible adults, but must keep in mind that they are still kids. We must praise and give more opportunities, rather than take them away out of fear.